Smart cards are well known electronic devices that most generally comprise a microchip processor, memory, an input/output controller, and a contact arrangement carried onboard a flexible card-like medium. While smart cards are generally designed to meet international standards to ensure compatibility with a wide range of card accepting devices, great variations exist in current smart card use and capability. For example, while some smart cards are designed to perform very low level and non-microchip processor intensive functions, other smart cards employ advanced microchip processor functions and perform microchip processor intensive functions over long periods. As with other electronic devices, smart cards generate heat as a byproduct of their function. Currently, some smart cards generate heat at a high level, rendering the smart card unfit for use in some card accepting devices. For example, smart cards used with satellite television set-top boxes are becoming more complex and performing more functions. However, this increase in functionality is accompanied by an unacceptable level of heat generation and build up within the integrated circuit components of the smart card, the smart card package itself, and a socket of the set-top box which receives the smart card. One attempt to reduce the temperature of the components of the smart card was to include thermal conducting foam on a bottom side of a smart card connector. The thermal conducting foam contacts a bottom of a set-top box to conduct some heat away from the smart card area. However, while there have been many advancements in smart card technology, current smart cards and card accepting devices (particularly smart card sockets) do not adequately transfer heat away from smart cards and card accepting devices.